Johns not the biggest Bama bust

Jimmy Johns has been a big hit since arriving in Tuscaloosa.

The gourmet sandwich shop on University Boulevard never fails to please hungry Alabama fans just before kickoff.

But there's another Jimmy Johns that's left a bad taste in the mouths of Tide fans.

This Jimmy Johns was located a few first downs away at Bryant Denny Stadium, but after a few unproductive seasons - capped off with last week's drug bust and subsequent dismissal from the university - he's out of business.

Chewed up and spit out.

Johns now takes his place as one of the Capstone's all-time greatest busts.

Touted as one of the South's top recruits, Mississippi's Mr. Football led Brookhaven to the state championship his senior year after throwing for 2,000 yards and rushing for another 1,000. At Alabama, Johns, a second-string running back, never topped 300 yards in a season, rushing for a career-low 69 a year ago.

He was converted to linebacker during the spring, but he'll never get a chance to prove his worth.

It wouldn't be fair to call Johns the Tide's greatest bust of all time. That title arguably goes to Billy Ray, the hot-shot quarterback from Atlanta who was touted as the next Joe Namath.

The only snaps of Ray's Alabama career came in a 37-6 loss at Notre Dame in 1987. After not even winning a letter at Alabama, he transferred to Duke, where he had decent success under Steve Spurrier.

Next on the list of Alabama busts are a couple of local products - Hazlewood's Pierre Goode and Colbert County's Dante Ellington.

Goode was good as any running back in the state, but sat out his first year at Alabama after being academically ineligible. An attempt to convert Goode into a wide receiver never panned out, and - except for a 90-yard touchdown catch against Tennessee his sophomore year and a 100-yard kickoff return against Ole Miss the next - he never lived up to the potential of his NFL-playing brothers, Chris and Kerry.

Although Ellington, the 6-foot-6, 350-pound lineman, started every game his first two seasons at Alabama, he missed nine games in the 2001 season and missed his entire senior season because of academic reasons.

Don't forget Tyler Watts, whose completion percentage never seemed much higher than Bluto's GPA in "Animal House." And Albert Means wasn't exactly worth the $200,000 that Alabama allegedly paid for him.

For less than 10 bucks, Alabama fans could have had something more pleasing - a Jimmy Johns sandwich.

Cody Whitlock can be reached at 740-5727 or cody.whitlock@timesdaily.com.